Jay Carney: On second thought, I guess it’s possible that that Benghazi attack was preplanned

posted at 9:34 pm on September 18, 2012 by Allahpundit

He was telling a different story four days ago, but now that the press is back in “what about Romney’s gaffes?” mode, I guess it’s safe to open the door a crack to a very obvious conclusion.

The White House on Tuesday explicitly left open the possibility that last week’s dramatic attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which left four Americans including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens dead, was a preplanned attack…

“There is an abundance of weapons, including heavy weapons, and there are certainly groups that carry those weapons and look to take advantage of those circumstances—as there are around the region and the world,” Carney said. He did not say whether such groups might be linked to international extremist networks like al-Qaida.

“We have seen circumstances in the past in other parts of the region where incidents that inflame opinion are taken advantage of, and exploited, by groups that have an interest in creating chaos and destabilizing their local governments, or attacking the West or the United States,” Carney said…

But Carney last week repeatedly blamed the video for the violence, including the attack on the consulate in Benghazi. “It’s not an assumption,” he said Friday, asserting that the administration had no evidence to buttress the claim that the attack was the work of extremists.

According to both a Libyan security guard who was there and an intelligence source “on the ground in Libya” who spoke to Fox News, there was no “protest” of the Mohammed movie in Benghazi at all. It was a full-on attack on the consulate from the beginning. I’m increasingly curious about why there’s such a discrepancy about this in various accounts; it should be easy enough to determine from survivors whether there was a group outside the consulate shrieking about the movie an hour or two before the shooting started. If it were only Carney and Susan Rice insisting that there had been a protest before the attack, I’d chalk it up to White House disinformation designed to buttress Obama’s “blame the video, not my policies” defense. But it’s not just them: A regional representative for Libya’s interior ministry also says there was a protest.

Meanwhile, the Breitbart crew may have solved the mystery of why security at the consulate was so weak. It’s hard to defend yourself when your top priority is keeping a “light footprint” so as not to offend the locals:

According to a source close to Breitbart News and high up in the intelligence community, the Obama administration’s policy following Muammar Gaddafi’s death has been to keep a “low profile” during a chaotic time.

For this reason, according to the source, American Marines were not stationed at the U.S. embassy in Tripoli or the American mission in Benghazi, as would typically have been the case. In the spirit of a “low profile,” the administration didn’t even want an American company in charge of private security. Blue Mountain, the British firm the State Department hired, was willing to abide by the “no bullets” Rules of Engagement (ROE), so were a logical fit for the contract. These sub-standard protections for American diplomats were signed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the ROE.

In essence, the Obama Administration tasked an unarmed British firm with security responsibilities that should have been handled by armed American servicemen, and it was all approved by the Secretary of State. Needless to say, the plan failed and an Ambassador was murdered, along with several others.

Krazy kwestion for the State Department: Given that the consulate had been targeted at least once before, how long were they planning to follow the “let’s be quiet and hope the local terrorists don’t know we’re Americans” strategy? Exit quotation from Mike Rogers: “This (the U.S. Consulate) was a place that was targeted months before with an IED (improvised explosive device). It’s clearly a target that they wanted to hit and they wanted to cause casualties. … It’s just too many coincidences here.”

Blowback

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on one of the 1000 Chinese Fishing boats to surround the
Japanese Island,for the WAR that is about to erupto!!:)

canopfor on September 18, 2012 at 10:26 PM

ROTFLMAO… Japan has the 3rd most powerful Navy on earth. China isn’t even ranked in the top 10. If by war erupting you mean that the Chinese are about to engage in artificial reef construction on a moderate scale, yes, I would agree.

J, I haven’t forgotten that I promised you copies of my family’s history.

Just haven’t found it yet.

GrannyDee on September 18, 2012 at 10:19 PM

And I haven’t forgotten either, I’m up to my ears in work and horses. I had to go to Prague last week for a few days of business and only saw one of my brothers and turned around and came right back home.

ROTFLMAO… Japan has the 3rd most powerful Navy on earth. China isn’t even ranked in the top 10. If by war erupting you mean that the Chinese are about to engage in artificial reef construction on a moderate scale, yes, I would agree.

Hillary Clinton has to go. Now.
Like Rumsfeld, Clinton is the Cabinet officer whose tenure began as a political rock star — and ended amid a chorus of controversy. In Rumsfeld’s case, by November of 2006 the besieged Secretary of Defense did in fact get the request for his resignation from President George W. Bush. And he left.

Hillary can’t resign. If she does, she blows her chance at 2016 by tacitly admitting culpability. She has said that she will step down and not serve should Obama get reelected. She will hold on for the next few months with as much might as she used to throw that lamp or ashtray at Bubba.

I cant help but think that John Nolte, also at Breitbart, is on to something. The Obama Admin needs to reframe the narrative so that their pro-Obama movie can come out, and any resulting violence cannot then be cast as resulting from the movie:

The White House on Tuesday explicitly left open the possibility that last week’s dramatic attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which left four Americans including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens dead, was a preplanned attack…

NEWS FLASH! In other news today, President Lead from the Rear has announced that he is convinced that water is WET!

This is not incompetence on the part of team carnhole. Just more dishonesty and corruption

THE PATTERN of this fraud of an Administration IS to ALWAYS respond INITIALLY in a provocative manner…… Only to later WALK BACK THEIR BS with, we/ he didn’t mean that, misspeaks, or just flat out lying denials and then let their lap dog media bury the story. And their damage is done- hoping no one is paying attention to the required correction or truth they have to come clean on at a later date. I call BS on this.

Gun Runner is a great example(s). Benghazi another. WHY ARE THESE FRAUDS ALLOWED TO DO THIS.

This still torks me off to no end! If there is one segment of the population people should be bending over backwards to ensure their franchise is not abused it is those who have done the most to defend it for all!

Too bad the Democrats-with-a-bye-line (Kudos to Rush for that phrase) never challenge Obama, Holder or Carney on that!

These sub-standard protections for American diplomats were signed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the ROE.

In essence, the Obama Administration tasked an unarmed British firm with security responsibilities that should have been handled by armed American servicemen, and it was all approved by the Secretary of State. Needless to say, the plan failed and an Ambassador was murdered, along with several others.

And they worry about a woman, dying of cancer years after a plant closes, and blames it on Mitt…meanwhile, they allow 4 people to die because they wanted a “low profile” on 9/11…despicable!!…

Yes, Susan Rice needs to go on every Sunday show she was on last week and ‘splain why she was so wrong. Why the UN Ambassador of the USA insisted on repeating bad information, who gave her this information and why?I can dream, can’t I?

ROTFLMAO… Japan has the 3rd most powerful Navy on earth. China isn’t even ranked in the top 10. If by war erupting you mean that the Chinese are about to engage in artificial reef construction on a moderate scale, yes, I would agree.

SWalker on September 18, 2012 at 10:29 PM

I know we’re wandering off topic here but this needs correcting. Japan had the 3rd largest navy in the world prior to 1920. It’s Maritime Defense Force today has 48 surface ships and 21 submarines. China’s navy conists of 899 surface ships and 63 submarines. It’s unwise to underestimate Chinese naval power.

ROTFLMAO… Japan has the 3rd most powerful Navy on earth. China isn’t even ranked in the top 10. If by war erupting you mean that the Chinese are about to engage in artificial reef construction on a moderate scale, yes, I would agree.

SWalker on September 18, 2012 at 10:29 PM

I know we’re wandering off topic here but this needs correcting. Japan had the 3rd largest navy in the world prior to 1920. It’s Maritime Defense Force today has 48 surface ships and 21 submarines. China’s navy conists of 899 surface ships and 63 submarines. It’s unwise to underestimate Chinese naval power.

My son-in-law was with the first Marine group to reach the Kuwait Airport in Iraq 1. Slight wound to face. Went through Iraq 2 with no wounds, until after the main fighting. An IED was placed near their mess hall by an Iraqui soldier who was also staying at that camp. He was pretty severely wounded; airlifted to Germany and then to California hospitals.

When he recovered he was offered a posting as part of the Marine Security at the Embassy in Egypt. He was planning to go, but when he heard about the ‘no bullets’ rule he said “WTF am I supposed to do, ask them politely to behave?”. He decided to retire instead. He said he has guns at home and a lot of ‘real bullets’ when they will be needed. Meantime he is finishing his degree in Accounting.